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No excuse for unsupervised children

Posted: Sunday, June 27, 2010

By Our opinion

It doesn't take a genius to see the common thread. Just read the police reports.

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From the mindless destruction of mailboxes in an Evans neighborhood to the rampant vandalism at Augusta Prep, it's pretty obvious that parents are doing a dismal job of paying attention to their children's whereabouts.

The Augusta Prep incident last weekend is especially bad. Columbia County cops believe three pre-teens and teens spent much of the day wandering through the middle school, spraying computers with fire extinguishers, pouring paint on a flag and sloppily snacking on stolen junk food.

Mom? Dad? Didn't you even wonder where your kids were?

Sadly enough, this sort of nonsense happens every year. School ends and juvenile crime rises, falling again only when schools reopen.

This isn't an argument for keeping kids in school year-round. It's a call for parents to supervise their children when the schools aren't.

Unless, that is, they want a government agency to supervise their kids behind bars.